Recently, I read an article about an exploration to determine if Pierce Transit should bring bus service to DuPont titled Pierce Transit Follow Up and City of DuPont Survey Results.
My knowledge of Pierce County dates back to 1959. Decades ago we faced the same question regarding implementing bus service in the Lakewood area. I easily concluded a NO vote would be in my best interest. I do not and will not ride city buses.
Having said that, I voted YES for bus service, because I reasoned voting YES would be an act of other-directed kindness in support of our community. Voting YES for buses was like voting YES for a school levy even though the voter does not have children attending school.
After the bus election was successful and taxes raised, Pierce Transit started serving Lakewood.
Cartoon by SWSIt was not long before the downside to bus service became apparent. The streets in The City of Tacoma were overflowing with troubled citizens. Bus service opened the flood gates allowing Tacoma’s troubled to reach Lakewood bringing with them their propensity for nefarious activity. Following that, Tacoma’s troubled figured out they could move to Lakewood permanently.
Today, Lakewood is a haven for the homeless. The homeless are beginning to take over. They are pushing people who take daily showers out of certain public areas of our city.
Every day the homeless can be seen with their worldly possessions in stolen shopping carts. The homeless are “day camping” and sleeping inside our library, local Starbucks and other public Lakewood locations.
The homeless are creating problems for private home owners who do not relish observing the homeless urinating and exposing themselves around their homes. The garbage and drug addiction paraphernalia the homeless leave behind is particularly troublesome to private home owners.
Homeless people have been caught sleeping in private yards of occupied homes after a night of breaking into the neighborhood’s cars and outbuildings.
Some of us, not wishing to spend time in “homeless day camps,” are forced to stop patronizing these day camper locations if for no other reason so as to avoid the smell, exposure to illness and panhandling.
It got so bad at Towne Center Starbucks, they had to tape off part of the customer seating as a biohazard. Starbucks then tore out the customer bench seating and sanitized the wooden chairs because a homeless woman was day camping and while doing so urinating on the Starbucks furniture on a daily basis.
Another Lakewood business, continually victimized by the homeless, was forced this past month to spend thousands of dollars on security fencing to keep the homeless from using the back of their building and parked cars as a latrine area.
Recently, in separate out of state incidents, transients killed two police officers.
I have no interest in being mean or unfeeling to the homeless or their plight. Each homeless person has a backstory. I know we have some good citizens working hard to help the homeless including the “unhousable,” but no quick solutions seem to be coming our way.
One of the enjoyable aspects of the City of DuPont is the fact that visitors to the city are not normally confronted with homeless people spoiling our freedom to patronize DuPont businesses. DuPont is now an oasis.
DuPont: if you do decide to start bus service seriously consider contracting with Pierce County’s Transit Police Service. You will learn soon enough that transit police are necessary in order to help maintain peace and safety in your city in and around buses.
DuPont: If you have now or in the future have any businesses with shopping carts, you will experience two problems. One of the problems will be the theft of shopping cards. The other problem will be having to deal with shopping carts abandoned all over your city which will degrade your current pristine appearance to more of a slum look.
It is amazing to me that a homeless transient can steal a $350 shopping cart with absolutely no consequences from either the victim business or our criminal justice system.
On the other hand, if I steal $350 worth of steaks from the grocery store, the victim business and our criminal justice system will round me up like a cattle rustler and mete out serious consequences including arrest, parole, lawyer fees, court costs and a criminal trespass order preventing me from lawfully returning to store.
One reason I do not steal is because I do not want to suffer all those negative consequences.
One reason the homeless steal shopping carts is because they suffer no consequences.
Currently, our society is fulfilling the role of “enabler”. We, as society, are a part of the problem as long as we enable the homeless to get away with criminal behavior. Society is part of the problem when we fail to offer our tax dollars to support mental health resources resulting in droves of mentally ill being released to wonder our streets.
DuPont: Should you elect to take a zero tolerance approach to homeless crime, which means booking criminals even for stealing shopping carts, the homeless will either stop their criminal activity or they will no longer venture into DuPont. Word that DuPont is a soft target or a hard target will spread quickly among the homeless.
In my view, two things are needed to solve our homeless problem: (1) We need the good people with warm hearts to organize effective programs to assist the homeless move towards a better and safer life style. (2) We need the no-nonsense citizens focussed on eradicating anti-social, irritating and criminal behavior to hold the homeless accountable for their actions.
It is time for both sides to team up to implement the “carrot and stick” problem-solving method rather than continuing to tolerate or ignore the homeless problem.
Maybe you should run for president!
I have not talked with an owner of a shopping cart, but, is it possible that the owner chooses not to press charges because the owner sees that the homeless person has no other means or place to keep all of his/her earthly possessions?
When you were actively wearing the badge, did you ever confront/arrest a homeless person who was using a shopping cart to carry his/her worldly possessions? What was the outcome? Did the shopping cart owner press charges?
Mr. Hoff,
Thank you for taking time to share your comments.
No, I do not recall ever contacting any homeless person for being in possession of stolen property, (shopping carts), during my 15 years of law enforcement service in Lakewood.
The key reason why I did not and the reason why I expect Lakewood Police do not contact shopping cart thieves is because the victim businesses do not wish to be a complaining victim. No victim equals no crime in terms of making it worth while for law enforcement to invest their time on the illegal activity.
Yes, that makes the victim businesses enablers. The result creates a slum environment in certain areas of our city.
The business victims do not let people steal carts because they feel sorry for shopping cart thieves. They are mainly interested in not generating any negative public relations with people who might accuse them of being cold hearted in dealing with the homeless. Incidentally, it is not just the homeless that steal shopping carts. Homebodies steal carts too and drop them off all over the city.
The second reason is victim business management does not wish to take a chance in spending time in court.
What they do, instead, is simply pass the cost of stolen shopping carts on to us as customers.
If I were in law enforcement in Lakewood today, and had the support of victim businesses, my department and the city, I could single handily stop 99% of the shopping cart thefts. We would start with what I call the “honeymoon period”. Honeymoon period means we would contact shopping cart thieves and give them verbal or written warnings. After the honeymoon period of say 30 days, we would begin to arrest and book shopping cart thieves. The word would spread on the street that it is not beneficial to steal shopping carts in Lakewood.
We can make a difference, but attitudes need to change and collaboration has to begin.
People could get creative. How about generating a “Help the Homeless” grant where the city would be able to give anyone feeling the need to steal a shopping cart, their own possessions transport unit? It could even be a specially marked single owner shopping cart, but it would not say Safeway or Target on the side.
Joseph Boyle
Some communities (Seattle, Portland) construct little villages of tiny little “houses” which provide shelter from the elements and gives the homeless a dry place to keep their “stuff.” Of course, no city, big or small, would want such homeless camps to be set up in their jurisdiction.
If these folks were to be arrested, jailed, charged, defended by a public defender, and charged fines which they couldn’t pay since they are penniless), the” government – whether city, county, or state – will be spending $$$ during each step of the process, and the homeless offender will either be released to capture another cart to set up “housekeeping” or invited to return to jail. Jail might be perceived as a good deal: out of the elements, a bed to sleep on, running water, and 3 squares a day. Maybe we could increase the local jail population to the point where we could stop shipping folks to Fife. Or, come to think of it, you might prefer that Lakewood’s unwashed homeless be delivered to Fife.
It’s definitely a long-term mental health problem, which needs to be addressed by our legislature (they’re working on it; talk to Laurie Jinkins, Joe). These mentally ill scofflaws need dedicated, knowledgable social workers, mental health counselors, and caseworkers to assess each person’s needs in order to function without unduly disrupting society and making us feel unsafe in our own neighborhoods and wherever we do business. Who writes the paychecks for these mental health professionals, and for additional law enforcement personnel to round up the homeless? We do, in the form of taxes. The longer we postpone dealing with this problem, the more expensive if will be to solve. We’ve already ignored it way too long.
As for the victimized businesses whose shopping carts have been involuntarily repurposed, their laissez-faire attitude is discouraging, because it doesn’t make sense to us. But I can understand their not making a huge deal of it. I mean, what would they do: dump all the homeless person’s “stuff” in the parking lot before retrieving the cart? With customers looking on? And would you be willing to do your shopping later, using this cart, if you knew what had been in it recently? I’d want these carts to be fumigated and sanitized immediately, before being returned to circulation – provided they aren’t rusty and their wheels are still round. I suspect they aren’t in good enough shape to return to the fold, and would be sent to shopping cart heaven. And whom does that help?
I believe this article is about more than the “theft” of shopping carts by the homeless. As for “shopping cart pollution” prevalence in Lakewood, people who ride the bus system also contribute to the problem by taking the cart to the bus stop and leaving it there. I’ve mentioned the following solution to this problem before. Read on:
Consider Safeway. Installing a “rack” of carts, similar to those at SEATAC is feasible. The customer inserts $5 to “rent” the cart. After shopping and loading their goods into their car, all they need do is return the cart to the end of the rack of carts and receive a refund of the $5. If the cart is not returned, the $5 is forfeited.
But wait! There’s more! If, say, an industrious teenager returns “loose” carts to the rack, they would get the $5 for each one returned. Problem solved. The carts are returned, contributing to the beauty of Lakewood, and the teenager makes some pocket money.
Mr. Shaw,
Your obviously good mind has blessed us all with some positive creative ideas. I bet teens would gather carts from all over the city and bring them back to the victim business locking rack.
I know I would if I were a teen again. I made a ton of kid money in the 1950s picking up pop and beer bottles and turning them in at the Thriftway for the bottle deposit.
So you have an old idea solving a new problem. I like the way you think.
Joseph Boyle
Mission accomplished Joe! You’ve managed to roil the insecurities of all Dupontites. Our new mayor’s vision forDuPont public transit just hit a wall.
Ray,
Thank you for your comment.
I wish to be clear that it is not my intention to scuttle your mayor’s plan for progress. It is my intention to protect the people of Dupont from being blind-sided. That simply means as you consider the pros and cons of Pierce Transit service, you will want to consider ALL the PROS and CONS, including the concerns I outlined in my article.
If Dupont decides to initiate bus service, I simply recommend that in doing so they take necessary steps to become a hard target rather than a soft target to avoid the homeless epidemic Lakewood is experiencing.
Joseph Boyle
Joe, it is a shame you writing this article for so many reasons but mainly because you are not even in tune with DuPont. We ARE a hard target city. If anything looks suspicious, the word spreads quick to the police and over the many DuPont FB pages. DuPont is establishing “Safe Streets” programs for all the villages. Finally, Pierce Transit gave a thumbs down once again last month for not providing us service – it is not viable. Also, we have transit with Sound Transit for the morning and evening rush hours. No Joe, the homeless and drug addicts do pass through on occasion and they are swiftly dealt with or told to move on – even without Pierce Transit service. So look elsewhere for your homeless transient problem, but keep DuPont out of it.
So Joe, in summary please stick with writing about Lakewood issues which you are mostly spot on with and leave the DuPont issues to DuPont residents to write about on this site.
If I remember correctly, a few decades ago, Tacoma School District had no school buses, and kids were expected to use public transportation (city buses) to get too and from school. Can you imagine, as a parent, putting your first grader on a city bus today? When it was first suggested that bus routes be extended out to University place in the ’70s, I was in favor of it; I saw it as an environmental responsibility issue: decrease air pollution and global warming, thin out commuter traffic, provide transportation for senior citizens. And for many people, it has served those purposes well. For instance, working people who don’t own cars can now get to their retail or service jobs in a nearby suburb where they can’t afford to live. (Think Aspen.)
David, I love your idea for refundable $5 fee for return of shopping cart! Brilliant! I wonder how expensive one of those cart dispenser systems is?